The Book of the Dun Cow (original 1978; edition 2003)

A bizarre book: nursery story meets Hieronymus Bosch. I can tell that it is about the struggle of Good versus Evil, but I was frustrated by the sense that other aspects of the allegorical symbolism were eluding me. A group of farmyard characters have escaped from Chaucer's Canterbury Tales into an allegorical plot resembling that of some half-forgotten work of John Bunyan or William Blake. Apart from the aforementioned classics of English literature, the only books that came to mind as I read it were Russell Hoban's The Mouse and his Child and George Orwell's Animal Farm, with their anthropomorphized animal characters and recurrent sense of oppression and sorrow. The main figure of Chaunticleer veers oddly between pompous patriarch, solicitous priest, and sacred warrior-king, and some of his exchanges with his beloved hen Pertelote are the most moving and modern, the least allegorical and animal-like, of all the book's threads. Otherwise, there's a lot of death and destruction, mourning and misunderstanding, betrayal and sacrifice.

MB 26-iv-2013 ( )

Having had this book on my shelf for 30 years, I decided that I should finally read it, so took it on holiday. Why did I wait so long?! This is instantly one of my favourite books. By turns funny, frightening, sorrowful and uplifting, the book tells the story of Chauntecleer the rooster and his battle to uphold good against evil.

The Christian symbolism is laid on fairly thick, but not so much that it gets in the way of the story and its message, which obviously is a Christian one. However, as G -vs- E is a universal theme, it easily transcends its roots in a specific religious tradition.

Chauntecleer is portrayed as a very complex character: proud and arrogant,but also very loving and self-sacrificing. He's a monumental literary creation. I really liked Mundo Cani Dog, and he's my favourite of the supporting cast.

Despite living in an obviously human-made environment (wooden coop with doors and windows, bread and cracked corn to eat) people do not enter the story at all and the whole narrative focuses on the animals of Chantecleer's domain. Having said that, I suppose that the whole book is actually about people, but allegorically so.

I'm definitely going to track down [b:The Book of Sorrows|383618|The Book of Sorrows|Walter Wangerin Jr.|http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1174343134s/383618.jpg|373383], which continues the story where Dun Cow leaves off. ( )

This is probably my favorite fiction discovery of the last five years. ( )

This is a marvelous book. The ultimate good vs evil but in the barnyard. I read this at least once a year. And it's not just for kids. I'm well into my 60's and learn something new every time I read it.

The author lives less than 10 miles from me and I have always wanted to just drop in on him and tell him how beautiful his book is. Never got around to it. ( )

Wonderful! ( )